


Keep Looking

by Damned_Writers



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Bisexual James Bond, Dom/sub Undertones, Dub-con Voyeurism (non-sexual), Exhibitionism, Figuring Out Their Issues Together (in a way that may or may not be the healthiest), Hand Jobs, James Bond Has Issues, James just needs to be taken care of, M/M, Neurodiverse James Bond, Neurodiverse Q, Q Also Has Issues, Questioning James Bond, Sex-Favourable James Bond, Some mild references to past bad relationships (Q), Some outdated language in terms of trans identity, Thoughts on consent, Trans Q, Voyeurism, and Q loves telling him what to do, and given orders that aren't destructive, aromantic Q, asexual james bond, it's a win/win, these tags suggest something far more explicit than the actual text
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:06:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26444614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damned_Writers/pseuds/Damned_Writers
Summary: Looking was fine, pushing his buttons was fine, but telling him something true about himself that he probably didn’t like to think about was a step too far in their strange close-but-not-close relationship. It opened a long-ago shut door of anxieties he’d had when interacting with people - especially other men. But James wasn’t like other men.Firstly, he’d killed a lot of people. Secondly, Q felt safe with him.
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Comments: 8
Kudos: 50





	1. The Invitation

**Author's Note:**

> This was written on the back of some conversations about James Bond being a middle-aged guy who sits neatly in the bracket of "of course I know what bisexuality is and also trans identities, but I'm not bisexual, because I don't fit the exact criteria of what I've been informed by society 20 years ago makes you this and asexual is completely outside my realm of knowledge, for I have done the sex," which is a surprisingly common thing with especially men of a certain age.
> 
> As my friend @bongbingbong puts it: "so there's that like, extra bit of like, being divorced from the concept of being "bisexual" because he's like no Q you don't understand I just fuck these people for work I guess you could call me Q-sexual haha and Q is like,,,, do you actually,,, enjoy Doing A Fuck???? and Bond is like WHAT DO YOU MEAN OF COURSE I DO I LOVE IT ITS GREAT LOVE TO UHHHHH [checks notes] PUT MY DICK IN THE THING"

It had been over a month now since he'd secretly started watching him during his training sessions.

Q told himself that he wasn’t really looking for any particular reason _._ He was just… curious. 007 being up late and training wasn’t unusual, neither was the fact that Q was up just as late tinkering, but his decision to reroute the security camera to a private monitor to watch him - not actively watch, just monitor - was a more recent development. He’d noticed that a couple of the cameras were being put on near-imperceptible loops at certain intervals and when he’d overridden their security codes to see what was going on he’d found 007 to be the culprit. 

He hadn't been doing anything particularly special. His shirt was off and he was doing push-ups, pull-ups, then punching bags, kicks, lunges. He moved in a mechanical way, like an insomniac who was trying to wear himself out. Q kept his eyes fixed on him and wondered if the drug of working out, practising violence, wasn't enough to get him to sleep, or maybe the familiarity of the movements in and of themselves calmed him down and sleep was never on the table. Whatever the case, he kept going for several hours until he abruptly stopped, cleared away mats and equipment, and left the room. Q had followed him down the hallway and left him alone once he reached the showers.

The next night Q found that he had returned, and the next, and the next- with a couple of exceptions he found him there practically every night for the following month.

At first Q had presumed that the reason he'd disabled the cameras was that he didn’t want his consistently later than late nights to be noted in his reports, but then he’d never really given a damn what anyone thought of his mental state as long as he functioned. Then he’d reconsidered that maybe he just wanted to be unobserved for a few hours, which perhaps should have led to him returning his privacy to him. But despite no longer having a reason for returning to the training sessions, he couldn’t stop himself from doing so. 

Perhaps the real line wasn’t actually crossed until he started taking his monitoring back home with him - not so much because of the intrusion, but because he was breaking his MI6 contract. It wasn't the first time - and it wouldn't be the last - that he did so, but for the sake of being at home with his cats he was willing to risk a little security breach. Q was actually not in the office late as often as people seemed to think, he had his cats to feed, plants to take care of, private projects to work on, and the occasional Kurosawa epic to torrent. The natural thing to do was to send the feed to one of his home screens, so that he could check if 007 - now that he thought about it, if they were off-duty that meant he could think of him as James - if James ever went home.

Tonight he’d loosed a clip of experimental ammunition into an unfortunate test dummy, which now more resembled melted plastic goo. Q was rewatching _Kagemusha_ and idly stroking Veidt behind the ears, while he kept his eyes fixed on James as he in turn appeared hypnotised by his own work. 

James had done this before -seemed to have some kind of surprised and almost shell-shocked aftermath of understanding at his own capacity for violence. It was fascinating, but Q didn’t plan to do anything with the information. He just looked. Categorised for himself. Certainly there was something that drew him in terms of what he could learn about James’ abilities, his temperament when he didn’t think he was being actively watched, his way of responding to various kinds of challenges, but in truth he couldn’t quite put his finger on why he continued to look, to categorise. 

He glanced at the time. 03.31. Around now James would go and take a shower, possibly head to an onsite bunk to kip in, which meant that Q could shut his own eyes for a few hours before heading back to the office. As a rule he didn’t follow James into the shower or to bed. There was only so much looking one could do before the breach of trust became more than could be reasonably justified. He finished his glass of water and prepared to sever the link, when James looked directly at the camera - at him. 

He blinked behind his glasses, another layer between their eyes that didn’t help to protect him from feeling utterly trapped. He held his breath, waiting. It was disconcerting being on the other side of the looking equation, even with the pixels separating him from those bluer than blue irises. 

In the end James didn’t say anything, just continued down the hallway. Q briefly considered following, but after a few seconds terminated the connection. He stared at the black screen, tapping the keyboard and considering how easy it’d be to just turn it on again, before he was suddenly distracted by the disgruntled Veidt asking him to keep petting her.

After a few seconds of obliging her, he decided that he was going to stop looking. He’d been found out and quietly warned off and he hadn’t been able to sufficiently explain why he’d been doing it in the first place anyway. He usually never did anything without good reason. This was an outlier that wouldn’t repeat itself. 

007 left for a mission not long after - something that barely required Q’s involvement. He seethed with an uncharacteristic jealousy about that fact, not because nobody was allowed to work with 007, but because not everyone knew the right way. The handler overseeing him was impatient and impersonal, not at all the kind of voice 007 needed in his ear as a give and take during a tense situation. In fact Q had the feeling that 007 was getting on his nerves. It made him feel a bit better about the arrangement.

At least Q had a handle on where he was and what he was doing, routinely checking in on where he was at - scoping out a target, seducing a wife, discovering a secret boyfriend, seducing the boyfriend - he’d always wondered about that with 007. He knew that he had a reputation as an enthusiastic lover, but there tended to be a strange hush hush attitude to his liaisons with men, as if it were somehow more sordid for him to sleep with a man for a mission than to sleep with a woman for a mission. It was that weirdly not-homophobic boys club attitude that pervaded like a hangover from the 60s, despite the fact that nobody wanted to admit to their little, embarrassed biases.

Now that Q thought about it he’d never heard of him “seducing” anyone off-work, of any gender. Not that he was spying on him, apart from his short misstep with the security cameras, but his notoriety _was_ very limited to what he did as an agent. This wasn’t the kind of space that shared a lot of details, but he could mention three or so personal facts about the lives of most of his coworkers, as well as more interesting things like their addresses and bank details (including M, whom he knew more than a couple of things about that he wasn’t supposed to know), but James Bond was an enigma precisely because he seemed to do nothing that wasn’t related to work. He had an apartment and several bank accounts, identities, family history files, etcetera, but nothing that Q could pin on him beyond the dry facts. Orphan, easily trained, difficult to keep on a leash, expert in several kinds of combat, weaponry, and especially cars (despite appearances). An alcoholic, which was perhaps the only thing that indicated some personal choice, if not a healthy one.

He thought about himself. His cats, his plants, his movies, his out-of-work inventions, his mother, ex-boyfriends that he didn’t contact, not to mention his transition - he didn’t have a particularly social life, but he definitely had a life that wasn’t his job. By contrast James Bond was more of a mask than 007 was. 

Oh, there was a gunfight now, nothing dramatic, easily handled, Q snuck a peak over a hotel security cam that he’d hacked into just in time to watch it end. The boyfriend was still naked and cowering behind the bed. 007 wouldn’t hurt him unless he did something stupid, which he seemed disinclined to do. Q’s thoughts strayed for a short moment to a curiosity about the act they’d recently completed - who’d taken charge, what they’d done… it wasn’t the first time he’d thought about it, nor was it just the men that had him wondering what he preferred of the many different sexual situations that Q had been various levels of privy to, but they were idle thoughts in the end. There wasn’t much way of deducing anything about a person from on-the-job dalliances. The agent did whatever was required, pretended to like what they had to like, to be who they needed to be. 

Still, there were little acts that indicated a human being - moments of kindness, such as when 007 (himself only in tighter than seemed comfortable boxers), after having secured the area and checked the bodies, walked over to him and helped him back on the bed, giving him back his pants and shirt and talking softly to him.

Q checked the mission logs. The target wasn’t meant to be dispatched, it was purely informational in nature, so clearly whatever was needed could come from the boyfriend, and that was easier now that he was compromised - 007 was probably promising witness protection of some kind in exchange for his continued cooperation. So just what was needed for the mission after all. Or maybe a smidgen of honesty, in the way he helped the man dress and waited for the extraction and clapped him on the shoulder as he was led away. That could be a ruse too, of course. Treat him well and he’d be more likely to talk. It was kind nonetheless. 

Q severed the link.

  
  


It was on that night that James appeared at his flat unexpectedly. Q was having another late one, already in his pyjamas, comfortably letting _Ran_ play in the background while he mused on a theoretical hacking into some CIA databases - not for any particular purpose, just to make sure he was on top of their security updates. 

He appeared without tripping any of Q’s meticulous alarms, which should have been disconcerting, but if anyone was going to know how to do it, it would be him. In any case it was only fair after what Q had done, but he wouldn’t let James get the satisfaction of thinking he felt any remorse for it.

“You’ve been spying on me,” Q said, sipping his tea.

“Takes one to know one,” answered the shadow in his periphery, before he stepped into the light of the screens. 

Q didn’t entertain. Luckily James didn’t seem like the kind of person who had much of a rulebook for what a good host ought to be, so as long as he wasn’t tying him to a surface to torture him for information he was probably in the top 0.1% of people that James had had the pleasure of being entertained by. 

“Tea?” he asked, thinking that James probably didn’t like tea. 

James inclined his head. “If you’re offering.” 

Q took him to the kitchen, the cats following James and meowing for his attention. He humoured them and knelt down smoothly to scratch each in turn, his movements reminiscent of those belonging to feline creatures. Q could forget, with all the ways he was required to function as a blunt instrument, that he was naturally incredibly graceful. It had been part of the interest in watching him train, his guard down allowing him to prowl like a predator, rather than throw himself against surfaces hoping they'd break instead of him, or engage in desperate fights for survival. 

Usually when guiding him on missions he didn’t have sight, just sound, so it was all grunts and groans of one kind or another. James here, with him, was -if not relaxed - then at ease, in a withdrawn kind of way. 

Q boiled the kettle and watched him with the cats. It was curious looking without a screen in the way or with the professional safety of James testing out some weapon or gadget in the lab. Even more curious to wonder if he was being given permission now that James was in his home. He hadn’t asked him to observe, but he knew it was part of what Q’s function was, even if he perhaps hadn’t known that he also enjoyed it quite that much. He must have suspected that Q would discover the security breach at HQ, now that he thought about it. That was a slip-up that was common when dealing with James Bond _and_ 007: assuming that he was a little less intelligent than you were. Even Q fell for it on occasion. 

He poured him a cup. “Milk, sugar?”

James quirked a lopsided, charming smile at him. “Don’t you know?”

“The only thing I know about you is what I’ve seen in your reports and your missions, Bond, and those aren’t accurate assessments of private tastes.” 

The smile remained - just as much of a question as the rest of him - as he straightened, much to the disappointment of the cats. “And my training sessions.”

“You weren’t drinking tea during any of them.”

“How would you know? You stopped looking.” 

“Is that an invitation?”

“Do you need one?”

“You clearly don’t.”

They were very close now. Playfully belligerently so. If James wanted to he could hurt him very badly, but he never would and that was a strange sort of power to possess. That was one thing he knew about him after all, he supposed. James _liked_ him. Enough that he would do a lot if he were ever in trouble to get him out of it again. And he clearly liked cats. The tea was dubious, but Q wanted him to admit to not wanting it.

“Sugar,” concluded Q.

James cocked an eyebrow. “Yes dear?”

“No, I’m giving you sugar,” said Q with an eye-roll. “Unless you tell me otherwise.”

James shrugged and stepped back to allow him space to add the sugar, which wasn’t exactly a yes, but not a no either. Q debated for half a second whether to call him on his damned insistence on not letting his preferences on anything be known, but decided tonight was already too full of avenues of possibilities to add that conversation to the mix. He gave him a spoonful, then another just so he could test how he responded. 

James sipped and revealed nothing. Bastard. 

“Why not go home?” asked Q. “Or back to your usual nighttime routine?”

He shrugged. “No point without the audience.” 

“I thought you were looking for privacy.”

Sip. Maybe the ghost of a grimace. “If I were looking for privacy I’d get a different job.”

“Have you ever considered?”

“Considered what?”

“A different line of work.”

Sip. “My skill sets are very limited to this sort of thing.”

Q snorted and leaned back against the counter. “That’s not true.”

“My skills have been tailored to this sort of thing then,” amended James. “I doubt there’s much else they could adapt to.”

“You mean, _you_ could adapt to,” said Q and felt suddenly that he had crossed a line in whatever was going on. Looking was fine, pushing his buttons was fine, but telling him something true about himself that he probably didn’t like to think about was a step too far in their strange close-but-not-close relationship. It opened a long-ago shut door of anxieties he’d had when interacting with people - especially other men. But James wasn’t like other men. Firstly, he’d killed a lot of people. Secondly, Q felt safe with him.

James seemed to be able to tell some of what he was thinking - presumably his face was a bit of an open book, which was one of many, many reasons he wasn’t suitable for fieldwork. In the end James simply looked around, as if taking in this flat for the first time, which Q knew was a farce meant for a bit of drama. “Nice place.”

What was his game? Simple change of subject? No, he wasn’t that predictable. “Thank you.”

“Bit impersonal. Apart from the cats.”

“I’m sure your apartment is the picture of quaint homeliness,” Q quipped back without any heat. It earned him another amused half-smile at least.

“You mean you haven’t turned your little cameras on in there?”

“You’d have found them by now. Despite what you may think of me, I don’t make a habit of invading everyone’s privacy all the time.”

“Just mine when you’re bored,” said James. “There are better ways to get my attention, you know.” 

“Who says I was trying to get your attention?”

“Then why were you spending your nights in this place-” he looked around and nodded at the screen where Lady Sué’s headless corpse was aesthetically framed by flowers, “-watching me?” 

“Why did you break into my flat?” he countered in lieu of answering, trying not to make it obvious that he didn’t _have_ a good answer.

James downed the rest of the tea and stepped forward into his personal space again. Placing the empty cup next to him as he leaned in closer, he crooned in his ridiculously gravelly voice: “To tell you to keep looking.” He met Q’s gaze. “Thanks for the tea. Bit too sweet.” And he was gone.

Q leaned back against the counter, considering. It was certainly a direct request, which was what he’d been wanting, but he wasn’t entirely sure what to do next, now that he had some form of confirmation of James’... interest? He didn’t know what to call it. Exhibitionism perhaps. An odd enjoyment for a man who was routinely injected with trackers and whose every movement - from sprain to sexual partner - was monitored. Maybe that was why he’d given up on a personal life; there was no such thing for a double-0. Still didn’t explain why he had accepted Q’s specific attention or what he wanted it for, or indeed why Q had offered it in the first place, in his own roundabout way.

The only thing to do, it seemed, was to keep looking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, James Bond hates tea, yes he'll get to confirm that.


	2. The Journey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t like tea,” said James lightly. “It’s mud. Or sickeningly sweet. Or whatever the hell chamomile is trying to be.” Q nodded, thinking that perhaps this was an obvious answer, but he’d wanted to hear it in his own words. He categorised: Likes warm weather. Doesn’t like tea. Likes cats. Doesn’t like social gatherings. Likes being watched by me. Likes me. James continued: “I’m not as much of a closed book as you seem to believe.”

Q rocked back and forth on his feet, a habit he hadn’t quite been able to shake, despite years of trying to fit in in an environment of people who wanted others to believe they were stoic machines. A tell, James had once called it, and yes, _thank you,_ being autistic was all tells and twitches and if he was currently exhibiting a nervous energy, he was nervous and felt no need to hide it.

“Relax,” said Moneypenny from behind her desk.

“Easy for you to say,” countered Q. “You’re not the one who’s being called in to explain his sudden resignation.” 

“Not that sudden,” she mumbled under her breath. 

It had been over five years now. They bled into each other enough that he wouldn’t be able to tell them apart had it not been for the office Christmas Parties he somehow found himself at and struggled to escape, like some kind of chain around his neck dragging him into a hellish bubble of smug spy smalltalk every December. He’d only ever seen James at two of them, the first bumping into him unexpectedly as he was hurrying out and only managing a curt, “I wouldn’t recommend the punch,” before disappearing into the night without waiting for an answer.

The second was just last year. Q was later than was fashionable because he’d been dragging his feet and was prepared to just pop his head in, nod to one person so that his credibility could be maintained and thereby break the annual curse that compelled him to show up in the first place and go home. 

As it turned out, that first person was James, as usual the magnet to his gaze. By now he was just too used to his face. He didn’t usually do faces, just categorised the details needed like machine parts, but James’ was like flame to a moth. He wasn’t handsome in the traditional way that Q had grown up looking at certain men and thinking he could never pass as one of them (those insecurities were long behind him, as were those kinds of men).

James had the attributes of masculinity, but cobbled together in a way that could appear almost ugly, except for the way he wore them so confidently. The eyes, obviously. Everyone always mentioned the eyes. There was more to it than that, but Q had seen him use those time and time again to draw people to him. They made you distracted from the fact that his nose was somewhat bent and his ears stuck out a bit (Q had seen a picture of him as a child, when that problem had seemed far more prominent and wondered if a boy who looked so serious and so like he wanted to disappear had been done for from the moment MI6 had laid claim on him). And his lips pouted. It was a good face. Noticeable, except for when he wanted to blend into a crowd, which he was clearly attempting to now. Q noticed though. Ever since they had met in the portrait gallery it seemed his mind had decided it was looking for him at all times, so no wonder it zeroed in on him like the barrel of a gun now.

James noticed him too. No doubt he’d noticed everyone. Parties must be exhausting for a man who was so used to being vigilant in large gatherings, but he’d come to this one for some reason. Q didn’t really do subtle staking out of rooms he entered, so he headed straight for him, not paying attention if anyone else was greeting him and trying to avoid - as he did when he was in cramped spaces - touching too many people on the way. God, social gatherings were _messy._

“I wouldn’t recommend the punch,” was the first thing James said to him. 

“I gave up on it years ago,” answered Q. “I thought you didn’t come to these.”

“I thought you didn’t come to these. Missed connections,” he smirked and drank from his beer. “So why do you come?”

Q sighed. “Because it’s expected I suppose.”

“And you always do what’s expected.”

“I’m trying to… be a team-player.” At that James even laughed. “Don’t act so surprised, apart from when it comes to you I’m a model employee,” sniped Q.

“I’m just special then,” said James.

“Don’t let it get to your head, it might explode.”

“Let’s go,” said James. “You’ve been here for long enough that M’s spies have noted your presence, and I’ve got nobody to impress.” He began to head out, the crowd parting just enough to let him by as he made himself visible once more, and Q hurrying after lest it close in front of him again. He didn’t have the same talent for willfully making himself the centre of attention that James did.

The night was cold, even with Q’s duffel. “Might snow,” James remarked. 

“Do you like snow?”

“I’m used to it. You?”

With anyone else this might be tedious smalltalk, but it never felt like that with James. More like both of them were digging for tiny details about each other, like that event some years ago when Q had begun his quest to figure out what tea he liked (still unclear, despite his promises Q had never seen him actually drink any). He made a note to himself that once more James had failed to give him a direct answer. 

“I don’t really care. But I don’t like being cold.”

“Prefer warmer climates?”

“No, I prefer being indoors.”

“With your toys and your cats.”

“You like warmer climates,” challenged Q. 

James looked at him. “Why do you say that?” 

“When you disappeared after getting shot, shortly before I came onboard, you went somewhere warm. I read the files.” It was dangerous territory and he’d crossed the line before, but this time he wasn’t saying anything specifically about his feelings in regard to his work or himself. Just the weather.

James took a moment and then said as though it cost him something: “I do like warm weather.” Then, as if he’d knocked open a door a little too widely, “I grew up very cold. But you’ve probably read those files too.”

Q nodded in confirmation. “Files don’t accurately tell you who someone is. I should know.”

At that James’ eyes flickered to him. “No, they don’t.”

“I know you’ve read them,” said Q. 

“Were you waiting for me to say something?”

Q shrugged, feeling the familiar stress of coming out, but only as an annoying back-of-the-throat tightening. Everyone at the organisation who was in charge of personnel or a nosy bastard like himself and James already knew that he was trans. If he’d had a problem with it he wouldn’t be working with him. At least, that was what Q was hoping. “It’s not a very important facet of me. Like I said, files don’t give you much of interest on a person. Not that I find most people interesting.” 

“I don’t like tea,” said James lightly. “It’s mud. Or sickeningly sweet. Or whatever the hell chamomile is trying to be.” Q nodded, thinking that perhaps this was an obvious answer, but he’d wanted to hear it in his own words. He categorised: Likes warm weather. Doesn’t like tea. Likes cats. Doesn’t like social gatherings. Likes being watched by me. Likes me. James continued: “I’m not as much of a closed book as you seem to believe.”

“You’d be surprised how much people keep back, even from themselves. Everyone thinks they’re so obvious, their expressions and body-language and innately understood social rules. But you don’t drink tea.” Q practically smirked at him. “How very un-British of you.”

James laughed. “I suppose it is. I could say something patriotic like ‘it’s why the empire fell’. Would that reinstate my credentials?” 

“We’ll have to put it under advisement,” said Q. 

They had stopped walking at some point. It was starting to snow, just as James had predicted. It wouldn’t last, the flakes disappeared before they even fully hit the pavement. Nobody indoors would even know it had snowed at all unless they paid attention to the smell of the air and the dampness of the tarmac. 

James kissed him. 

An affectionate hand touching his neck, a stroke of a thumb on his pulse, a short brush of their lips, and he withdrew. “You overcomplicate things,” said James. “People are easy to read.” 

Nothing further had occurred on that evening. They had parted ways and Q had gone back to his flat to think.

James Bond worked instinctively. On missions he’d have the bare bones of a plan and let fate and sheer ballsiness and skill do the rest. In the real world (if such a place existed) he seemed to lose his ability to act rationally, like caged animals released into the wild who were confused by their lack of structure. They acted out, they got themselves hurt, they did things they wouldn’t usually do. 

Not that Q didn’t think James had wanted to kiss him, he worked as much on instinct out here as he did when he was tasked with shooting a man, it was simply that Q couldn’t quite get to the bottom of what it had meant. If it had been anything but his want in the moment. His way of showing his support in a strange way that was both laden with sexual tension and not.

It was similar to Q’s own ruminations on why he liked to watch him train - a habit formed sometime in his first year on the force and continued after James had given him permission to keep going. He didn’t know what had caused him to begin or what had made him continue, except that he wanted to and clearly so did James. 

And it was why Q needed to resign. One of the reasons why. He had watched James and 007 for the past years, on missions, while testing out a new weapon or gadget, training, and slowly, slowly - like the tide eroding a mountain - wearing out. Their interactions were punctuated like scars over bullet-holes by conversations like these, but James Bond was become less and less of a person and more of a machine. Despite his one-time assertion that people were easy to read, he remained inaccessible, confusing, unwilling to let himself be known. Perhaps Q’s fascination was in the man within that machine. After all he’d always gotten on better with the latter. Perhaps he wasn’t even interested in the presumed other James that existed within him, but he couldn’t really know until he found him and he was nothing if not tenacious. 

The other reason was himself and the fact that despite himself he had ideals. Strangely, these were also James’ fault and a part of his ever-shifting easy-to-read-difficult-to-read paradox. James Bond was an idealist. It had taken Q a long time of watching to reach this conclusion, and even longer to believe, but in the end it was quite simple. He just hadn’t seen the forest for the trees, so caught up in the individual good deeds that 007 did, the way he butted heads with M and handlers, his growing exhaustion, to realise that they were all connected to the larger picture that made up James Bond. But as MI6 revealed the rot of its foundations, the means-to-an-end creating ends that benefited status quos that actively sought to imprison, torture, and kill men like himself, the statistics of the so-called big picture that they were fighting for seemed like forest fires of disaster after disaster after disaster. 

To begin with it hadn’t affected Q. He wasn’t here for politics, he was here because the government preferred to keep him close and happy with a practically unlimited budget, to what he might do without their fingers on his funding, and he had somewhat bought into the simplistic ideas of good versus bad. He wasn’t stupid, he was just fixated on his world.

Then it affected James, and Q - who had decided within a very short time of meeting him that he would probably end up doing some very stupid things for his sake - realised that his worldview included him. It was a realisation that was a little grating - he’d told James once that people often held back information from themselves, but he hadn’t counted himself on that list. He _knew_ himself. He’d made choices that less self-aware people judged - I am a man, I am a relative genius, I like computers more than people, I don’t wish to be involved in social gatherings. He hated being proven wrong and hated even more that whatever power he had over James, it was the same one that James had over him. If either of them got into trouble, the other would go through a hell of a lot to get the other out again. 

And that was exactly what had happened. Because of James’ slowly building idealism getting him into trouble and disobeying direct orders and Q being dragged right down with him, because James meant more to him than 007 or MI6 or Queen and Country. And because the many didn’t outweigh the one, as it turned out. There was only one person he’d willingly burn his own career to the ground for.

So he had to resign. Which he had done with the expectation that he was going to be fired anyway and possibly locked away in a small room with no air vents. He nervously beat a pattern with his fingers. Moneypenny sighed and stood. “He’s ready for you now.” She grabbed him by the shoulders and gave a comforting squeeze. “It’ll be fine.”

M sat behind his desk, appearing as per usual to have swallowed a lemon. He hadn’t been quite as surly when he’d first taken on the job, but then the agency was - as he put it - like herding cats who liked to blow things up. 

“I got your resignation email,” he began, primly. 

“It seemed better to anticipate my sacking,” answered Q.

M raised an eyebrow. “I might be _very unhappy_ with you right now, but I was thinking suspending you from working with active agents would do the trick. It seems you get too attached to them.”

“Not really, sir.”

“Just 007.” He grimaced. “Since he’s dead now there shouldn’t be a problem. For any of us.”

Q resisted the urge to retort that he didn’t believe he was dead, because that would include him admitting that he’d withheld evidence in order to let him drop off the map. Things would be very grim for Bond this time around if he was caught - Q had a feeling that the British government would only need him insofar as they could exchange him to some hellhole prison for less troublesome agents. That was what happened when they had no more use left in them. 

“Nevertheless sir, I think leaving is the right decision.”

The grimace became grimacier. “You know we won’t be happy about this. You could go away for a very long time for what you did. Abetting in treason.”

Ah yes, he had wondered if in the absence of James Bond he might not be the one who would be extradited. He’d tried not to think too much about it. 

“I’m aware. But as you said, he’s dead. I don’t really have any cause to be a problem.”

M tutted and tapped his fingers on the desk in a way that both distracted Q from his many planned replies and made his anxiety sky-rocket. Decision time, it seemed. “If it hadn’t been for the fact that I’ve heard that you’ve been considering this for some time I wouldn’t let you go. But I don’t have any need for a man who’s not all in, so to speak. Men like that make mistakes.” He added pointedly: “Men like that don’t follow their orders.” He sighed and stood, walking around his desk to hold out his hand. Q took it, surprised at the cordiality. “That being said,” M continued, “we’ll be keeping a close eye on you. A _very_ close eye.”

“Understandable.”

M relinquished his hand. “What’ll you be doing then? You can ask for references once I’ve calmed down enough to not want to strangle you.” He said the last bit with enough of a straight face that Q wasn’t sure if he was joking or not.

“I think I’ll just be taking an early retirement holiday actually.”

“Where will you be going?”

“I’ll find out when I get to the airport. Someplace warm.”

He stepped out of M’s office feeling weightless for a moment, before the reality of it crashed down on him. He was out of a job, on a to-be-observed list of possible criminals, and he had the barest amounts of a plan. It was, putting it mildly, unlike him.

Moneypenny was leaned against the front of her desk when he exited, waiting for M to close the door behind him before walking forwards. “Could’ve been worse from the looks of it,” she said, patting his arms in a fond way.

“Ms. Moneypenny, could you do me a favour?” he said, realising that if she said no his suddenly formulated idea would be impossible to follow-through on from the get-go.

“Depends on what you’re about to ask,” she said, but there was a smile there.

He took a deep breath. “I need you to take care of the cats.”

  
  


Q stepped on the plane. He had decided on someplace warm as a way of beginning a treasure hunt, as if he would stumble across James at the first beach he unhappily got sand in his shoes on. Someplace warm. The Caribbean fit those criteria, so he’d begin by tracking his way down the Leeward Islands and then he’d make a new plan when he was done with those. This was not at all enough of a plan to feel comfortable with, but exactly the amount of idea that he expected James to have, if he really wasn’t dead. Which he wasn’t.

He shut his eyes, sighing. He hated flying. He hated the concept, the feeling, the stupid in-flight dinners, he’d hated having to book the ticket and go through passport and bag control. He dreaded that he might get patted down (he was), and that his bag would have to be emptied (it wasn’t). He despised the over-loud, over-stressed, over-capitalist hallways he needed to walk down to even get to the damned plane. And even in first class he was going to be forced to sit next to some stranger. At least they wouldn’t be close enough that their arms would keep touching, but he still risked someone who wore strong cologne or perfume, breathed loudly, or insisted on conversation and he couldn’t pretend to be asleep for this entire journey. Nothing about this would be fun. “If you’re still alive, I might actually kill you myself,” he muttered under his breath and took out his computer to distract himself.

“That would be a waste of a journey,” said James from next to him. His head whipped around, sure that a second ago there had been nobody there.

“You bastard.”

James smirked. “Aren’t you relieved it was so easy to find me.”

“I believe you found me,” said Q. “Now I think we can get off the plane if this journey isn’t necessary-” he began, making to stand. James held up a hand.

“- ah, ah, ah, I think you made a good choice. St Martin. We’ll start there. See if we grow tired of each other.” 

Q slumped back, for a moment forgetting the upcoming terror of the plane moving as he tried and failed to picture what the two of them would appear like in some small house in the Caribbean. He didn’t mind the thought, he’d just never considered that this might be the future, but the more it attempted to grow roots in his imagination, the more he found himself in something of a good mood, despite the current situation. “And then where to?”

James smiled in a way that Q might have described as fond if he could be sure of how to describe a facial expression. “Somewhere by boat, I think,” he said and leaned back in a content, catlike way.

“By boat,” agreed Q. “Not by plane.”

“No Q. Not by plane,” confirmed James, softly.

Q shot him an amused look. "Q?"

"I had the feeling that you preferred that to the name in your files."

"Mmm," said Q, non-commitally. "With my mother I appreciate her using that one, seeing as I chose it. She does her best. You're the only one who calls me Q outside of work."

"And you prefer that," said James. 

"I'm used to it."

"You're used to me, you mean." 

"I suppose I am," said Q, the madness of the situation sinking in. He had committed treason, resigned, basically run away, and gotten on a plane for this man.

"Lucky me," said James as if he could read his mind, leaning closer across the gap.

The plane began to move and anything that either of them had been about to say was interrupted by Q remembering all at once that he was in fact currently on said plane. He squeezed his eyes shut and muttered a quiet, but vehement: "Fuck."

It was gong to be a long journey.


	3. The Swim

Q didn’t dislike St Martin. He disliked not having his cats, he disliked not being able to wear a jumper, and cycling. He missed the routine of his life. He couldn’t say that he missed much else, although he had liked several people at the agency, Moneypenny in particular. She'd taken in the cats and they seemed very pleased by their new surroundings. She'd recently broken up with her boyfriend, who hadn't been quite so understanding of her hours as he'd thought he would be and Q thought that might be why she was craving company of the non-human sort. Upon further inspection though, she and the new 007 seemed to be getting on like a house on fire.

Not that Q was prying into her life, he was just checking in on the cats.

Weighing all of these facts he found he had no strong feelings about returning, but he also wasn’t entirely sure what he was here for and that was a source of anxiety. He and James had occupied an expensive, two bedroom beach house that overlooked a wide expanse of ocean and was about to hit the season when it would be covered in tourists and Pride flags. 

They hadn’t discussed the nature of this arrangement since touching upon it before the first of their two far-too-long flights had taken off, a journey on which James at first left him to work on his computer, apart from every once in awhile when he was bored and needed attention. Q's phobia had kept him from being as clear-headed as usual, so James had flirted with a couple of hosts and hostesses and convinced Q to drink enough gin that the second flight was a blur. His first clear memory was waking up in their current home with his shoes, socks, and jacket removed and vomiting into a helpfully placed bowl. He would've thanked James for his thoughtfulness, except that it was his fault he'd been flying in the first place.

Now that they were here, Q suspected that something was supposed to happen, but wasn’t sure about exactly what. Were they just going to wait around in St Martin until they went their separate ways? He didn’t want that. He could endure St Martin like he could endure England or Austria for James, but only if James actually wanted him there. 

Which meant he had to take initiative, something he hated due to the unknown landscape that stretched after it. James appeared to be fine simply inhabiting the same space as him, slept little, went swimming at odd hours, and drinking at even odder ones. They were barely actually together in any way, although Q had noticed that James had taken to cooking while he was asleep and leaving him food to make sure he ate when he wasn’t on his computer.

He assumed that on nights when he didn’t return he was picking up someone or other and going back with them for the night. Q supposed he appreciated that he wasn’t trying to bring them here, but he hoped that James didn’t feel some kind of obligation to make him feel comfortable. Q wasn't jealous of anyone who slept with James Bond, he was more than used to seeing or hearing him with other people, and in any case leaned on the aromantic non-monogamous side of things, it was just that he needed some… clarification. On where the two of them stood.

All of this he told James a variation of that he had memorised, in a way that he thought sounded pretty well-formulated and followed the script that he had set out for himself. Unfortunately he hadn’t been able to picture how James would respond and for once that wasn’t purely down to James being so thoroughly unpredictable. He didn’t do either of the two extremes - walk out of the door or rush over to kiss him - both of which Q had discounted as possibilities anyway, but just sat for some time, seeming to think it over. After a lengthy silence, in which the living room they inhabited seemed to grow both smaller and larger as Q tried not to fidget, he finally said: “Can I ask you a question?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you look for me?”

“Pardon?”

“After I was presumed dead. You quit and immediately get on the first plane to the Caribbean. Quite a reckless move, Q.”

“It seemed like the right thing to do. I’ve been your Quartermaster and handler for too many years to want to work with anyone else. And…”

“And what?”

Q tried to make the words make sense in the way they had when he had first decided to run after him, but gave up and simply said, “where you go, I go.”

“What does aromantic mean?” asked James suddenly. He didn’t sound like he was changing the subject because it had gotten too heavy, it was simply puppy-like distraction.

“I’m not sure that I believe in romantic love,” said Q. “It’s too… simple. Too definable. Doesn’t encompass the kinds of connections that people have with each other, or at least, not the ones I’ve had.”

“Have you ever been in love?”

Q looked at him. “In a way.” After a moment the intensity of James’ return gaze proved too much and he continued in order to fill the room with something else: “A little like being trans, really. The undefinable sense that something the world has decided is a fixed truth isn’t quite so simple.”

“When did you know?” 

“About myself? Difficult to say. I’ve heard people say they always knew, but I don’t think it was that simple.”

“In what way?” Asked by anyone else and Q would have asked them to kindly shut the fuck up about this subject, but James was James. He wanted James to know him. 

“I still don’t know, truthfully. None of it is entirely… real. Gender, masculinity, femininity. Non-tangible concepts that we make up rules for. Man is… easier. It sits better. That’s all I can say.” Despite having done this hundreds of times before, despite knowing that James knew, his traitorous heart still beat faster and he could feel cold-sweat forming beneath the shirt. 

James nodded as though he understood and he lay back on the expensive sofa that came with this place to stare at the ceiling. Q’s mind concocted all the reasons that he would wake up to find him gone in the morning, scenarios of rejection, abandonment, being outed, violence - none of which were really about James, but consisted of faceless boyfriends that he had partially had and partially heard of others having - he’d never enjoyed having a boyfriend and he didn’t particularly wish for one now. The word was insipid to him. What he wanted was for James to stay, or at least to say something. 

“I’ve had sex with people like you before,” was what he ended up saying to the ceiling. It was not helpful in calming Q down, but at least it was an opening. He disregarded the standard tip-of-the-tongue replies of “what terminology and sentence structures could be construed as offensive,” because he didn’t want to doubt him. Not after all this time.

That left attempting to fill in the gap with an unprepared reply. “Okay?” was all he ended up being able to think of.

James looked at him. “I don’t care that you’re transsexual,” he said. “If that’s what you’re worried about.” 

“Am I worried that you don’t want to have sex with me?” He had a feeling that their train of thought was running across parallel lines - the same track, but not quite meeting.

In response to that (and confirming Q’s suspicion) James suddenly sat up and kissed him. It was unlike the time in the snow. This was semi-drunk and with a purpose - not forceful, but lingering, asking. Q withdrew and James furrowed his brow in confusion. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“I… is that what _you_ want?”

He shrugged. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Because you’ve never told me what you want, you ass,” snapped Q suddenly and stood up. “So once you’ve decided to do so, let me know, and until then think about how there are more ways to interact with a human being than shooting or fucking them.” He left, because standing still felt anti-climactic, and regretted leaving as soon as he had done so. 

This whole damn place was just beaches and bars, so he decided on the latter and hunted down a queer-friendly place that seemed relatively quiet pre-Pride season to sit and drink something non-alcoholic. He took the first sip slowly, still feeling James on his lips and unwilling to let go if the taste quite yet, if it turned out this was to be the last time. He had images once more of returning and finding the place empty, or of meeting some kind of anger that he couldn’t believe that James would ever point in his direction, as much as he’d seen every facet of his violent side pointed at others. He was safe from that, he was safe, he was just stupidly reactive. The idea of anger created disaster scenarios in his mind: Rejection, abandonment, being outed, violence. He wished he hadn't responded as he had done. James didn’t deserve his insecurities. 

A couple of men asked if he was alone, if he was looking for company, if he wanted to go someplace, and Q answered that he was waiting for someone and eventually sidled off, looking pathetically stood up. He would go back and apologise - not for losing his temper, he felt relatively justified - but for storming off without explaining himself, and then he would explain himself, eloquently, hopefully. 

He spoke it out loud under his breath. He would explain to James that he didn’t want to be thought of as a sexual conquest first and foremost. He would go through a history of community violence and avoid mentioning any of his own. He would ask James to stay. And if they had some time after that he would begin to explain some modern terminology. 

He walked along the beach on the way back, keeping to the path until he spotted a lone figure sitting at the edge of where the waves lapped his feet. It could have been any man, but Q could recognise his silhouette on a darker night than this. He’d watched him often enough that he thought he would probably be able to pick out his shadow by now.

He stepped off the path, immediately getting sand in his shoes. He didn’t announce himself, aware that James would’ve heard him and kept him in his periphery until he was close enough to recognise. Q saw when it happened - a soft slump in James’ shoulders as he lost some of his tension. Otherwise he masked it well.

“Q,” he said, voice even and bland and directed at the ocean. 

He debated with himself for all of five seconds and sat down next to him. The words he’d prepared seemed to disappear into the sea, but for now, silence was okay. It wasn’t anger. And with James it was like being alone with his computers, a comforting whir replaced by a comforting body. 

Eventually James spoke. “You were probably right to ask,” he said.

“What about?”

“You once asked me if I could adapt to a new life,” he continued, the train of thought spoken as if this conversation had just happened and wasn’t burned into Q’s mind as being years ago in his kitchen. Clearly James hadn’t forgotten it either. “The truth is I don’t know. I was hoping I’d be too dead to have to find out, but…” he gestured vaguely at nothing. “Like you said. None of it is entirely real. This beach. This life. Me.” 

“Yes, well, that doesn’t mean you can’t adapt,” said Q simply. James looked at him, so he kept going: “I meant that line of enquiry sincerely. And if you remember the context I wasn’t doubting your abilities, merely your confidence.” There was a realisation as he spoke those words and he added suddenly, “do you use bisexual at all?”

“Pardon?”

“Bisexual. To be attracted to more than one gender.”

“I know of it,” said James, warily. 

“And you don’t use it?”

“Do I need it for anything?”

Q shrugged. “I suppose not. It’s a useful tool, that’s all. Like transgender.”

“Transgender…” repeated James, a little slower. “I see. I think your generation’s a little obsessed with labels to tell you the truth.”

“Perhaps yours is too afraid to be introspective. After all, your generation had to avoid getting arrested,” said Q, stone-faced.

James squinted. “How old do you think I am?”

“I know exactly how old you are,” smirked Q. James nudged him and managed half a smile of his own. 

“Would my having a label be useful to you?” asked James. 

“You’re doing it again,” said Q. Once the pattern was noticed it was easy to spot.

“Doing what?”

“Avoiding making a choice.”

“In what way?” said James, seeming so genuinely sincere that Q decided he wasn’t going to throttle him. 

“You’re assuming this is about me.”

“I thought it was. I just have sex with people for work, there’s no need to categorise that, but you clearly care.” 

There was something in that sentence that made Q take a second to reassess. Perhaps the way James looked when he said it, or the words themselves. He started with what felt most like the most obvious question, but also the most unbelievable. “Do you… _actually_ feel sexual attraction?” 

The expression on James’ face changed from serious to disbelieving. “You tell me, you’re the one who’s made a career of watching me.”

“I’m serious,” said Q, heating up at the idea that there had been something illicit, unprofessional in his observing the missions he’d gone on as 007. His spying on him while he was training had been entirely non-sexual in nature, but perhaps there was some conflation that he had refused to acknowledge. Damn James for reading him so well. 

“I’m being serious. How in the world did you reach that conclusion?” The bafflement was laced with amusement, but Q didn’t want to let this go now. 

“And what about off-work?”

“I’ve had sex off-work as well. When I’ve been bored or in need of distraction. There’s nothing wrong with me.” He said the last as though he hadn’t meant to. Some secret thought that he hadn’t wanted to look at, but which had fought its way out of its hiding place to be swallowed by the soft whooshing of the water at their feet. 

Q said softly, “I never said there was. But to be clear, I didn’t come with you to this dreadfully sunny place to have a quick fuck, we could have done that back in England in the winter.”

“That’s very crude of you,” said James, sounding like he loved it. 

Q rolled his eyes, feeling a surge of fondness for him that he usually only felt for his cats when they had brought in something dead as a present for him. “What I mean is that I hope you think more highly of me than that. I certainly do. I haven’t broken god knows how many laws in the hopes that we’d one day have a one night stand and that’s not what this is all about either.”

James seemed to struggle for a moment. “Then what is this about?” he finally said.

“It’s about making sure that you don’t disappear on me again,” answered Q. “And because I like your company.”

James huffed out a breath at that and his gaze returned to the sea, as if Q was hard to look at suddenly. “Yes, it is thrilling company,” he said. “Once I’ve mastered communication beyond killing or fucking I might even be able to discuss the weather.”

“Having heard you carrying conversations with people who want you dead, I know your repertoire isn’t that dull, otherwise I wouldn’t like you as much.” Q decided that if he was going to have to suffer the sand for a longer conversation, this might as well be the time to take his shoes off for it. James watched him quietly as he did so. It wasn’t so bad right by the water, where the sand became firm.

“It’s different,” said James when he had finished.

“How come?”

“I know what they want. I have an objective. Outside of work, there’s just trying to read people to figure out what they want. Minus the objective.” He added under his breath: “Kite in the wind.”

“Maybe you just need a tether,” Q mused. 

“How very poetic of you Q,” said James. “I never would’ve expected it.”

“Do you need an objective?”

“The few times in my life I haven’t, I’ve… drifted. Chased violence, sex, drink. That used to be considered the height of masculinity,” he sighed. “Just a bit fucking sad, isn’t it.”

Rejection, abandonment, being outed, violence. 

Q thought that maybe he wasn’t giving James enough credit. He'd presumably had the same fears all of his life and had them manipulated by others. He wasn’t a machine after all, nor was he stupid; he knew his own insecurities and the vices he chased to drown them out. The problem was that nobody had ever taught him how to face them, because he was of more use when he couldn’t function without someone giving him orders. Kept him coming back for another beating over and over. 

“Do you want an objective?” he asked.

“What kind?”

“The kind that might calm you down.”

Another long silence punctuated by those calming waves fell over them as James considered. “Alright,” he finally said. “Be my tether.”

“Alright,” Q repeated and stood up. “In that case-” he held out a hand for James, who took it with that half-smile of his that Q knew meant he couldn’t help himself and lifted himself up with barely any help needed on Q’s part. It was the idea of Q holding out a hand that mattered though. 

“Now what?” asked James, closer than Q had expected him to be. 

“I think you should take a swim,” said Q, speaking the first thing that came to mind.

“Alone?”

“I’ll watch you.”

It seemed ridiculous for half a second, but then James obeyed without further questions - first pulling his shirt over his head, then stripping out of his shorts and pants, before stepping into the dark, still ocean. He continued to walk as Q watched, eventually disappearing beneath the water. Q counted. Ten seconds. Twenty seconds. Thirty seconds. He wasn’t worried. James needed to disappear for a moment, to clear his head so that he could fulfil the order he’d been given. One minute. James’ record was a lot longer than that - ten and a half minutes when practising static apnea. 

Two minutes and ten seconds and he reappeared much farther out, a bright spot in the starry night. He continued to swim, out, out, out, as if he was hoping he could be taken by the ocean, while Q waited on the beach, ignoring the discomforting sensation of the wet sand between his toes in favour of just looking. It was curiously diverting, despite the fact that all he could see of James was a far-out blurry blot. 

Eventually it seemed to turn around and start to come back, bit by bit transforming into the sounds and features of James’ breaststroke. Once he could stand, Q was greeted with the expanse of his chest - the gradually descending water revealing stomach, groin, legs, until he stood in front of him once more, ankle-deep. He was breathing deeply, the effort of the swim already turning into a relaxed, sated calm, where before he had been bunched up, like a racer at the starting line. 

Q had considered the next steps while he swam. Naturally his mind had wandered to the possibilities of a sexual component, but with the recent revelations about James’ relationship to sex he wanted to be sure that there was a mutual need. If James was nervous about using a word like bisexual, then asexual might send him into a spiral of denial. But still, Q had the feeling that James did get something out of sex, in the same way that he’d gotten something out of this swim. A way to shut off his brain with a familiar task that led to some form of release. And if watching him all these years had taught Q anything, it was how to give James that release. 

“Good?” he asked, surprising himself with how tender it sounded.

James nodded. “Yes. Thank you.”

“Good,” said Q. “Then you can pick up your clothes and we can go back inside.” 

James nodded again and did as he was told, following Q, who had retrieved his own socks and shoes. He really needed to invest in sandals, but he hated the damn things.

The warm night-air wasn’t quite enough to dry James off, making him appear strangely translucent. The lights from the various beach houses of this area lit him up as though he were on a stage, some artsy, pretentious queer piece that would end with the exact kind of scenario that Q was imagining right now. He allowed himself to glance down, making the assumption - given that James had made no moves to cover himself - that at this point consent was given enthusiastically for him to look. James was hard, which was a helpful pointer that he was going in the right direction. 

Communication with people was difficult under the best of circumstances, never mind when one party never revealed their true needs, and possibly didn’t even know them himself, but theirs was a long partnership, with enough cues for Q to feel confident about his decisions. Unlike MI6 he had always had James’ interests at heart, something that James had known and never doubted ever since the first time he had convinced him to lie to the current M. Which meant that he trusted Q to take over now that he was struggling to articulate himself.

Bi or ace, in love, longterm, queer - these were questions for another time. Right now, Q just wanted to make sure that James knew that he wasn’t going to leave him. That was all James needed. In return he was offering the same deal: He was handing over absolute power to Q, and with it absolute trust. It stilled Q’s fears as much as he hoped he was doing the same for James.

They walked in silence up to the beach house. Q unlocked their door and led a still somewhat dripping James into his bedroom. He’d contemplated with himself where would be the best place and had decided the familiarity of sheets James had slept on for a week was better than keeping everything perfectly clean. Besides, they had an extra bed next door. 

“Wait here,” said Q and brought a towel. 

James remained standing where he’d left him, making no move to wipe away the water dripping from his hair onto his eyelids. He allowed Q to dry him, beginning with his hair, and moving down his body, raising his arms when needed, his eyes following his movements, but otherwise remaining still. His erection had flagged somewhat, but as Q moved down it responded like it had been Pavlovian conditioned, which he supposed it had. It made him hesitate for a moment. How much of this was James wanting him to touch him, and how much was enduring the touch for Q’s sake. He looked into his eyes, for a moment breaking down the roles they had assigned in order to ask and James took his free hand softly in his own and guided it down to his thighs, between his legs, touching him.

With the towel Q pushed him gently back to the bed until he sat down, momentarily halting his exploration as he continued to push and lay down next to him. James wasn’t completely dry, but that hadn’t been the point anyway. Q just wanted to be gentle.

James’ eyes had momentarily belied a tension, but after he had been allowed his moment of control and relinquished it back to Q, they became hooded and blown, as if he was soothed into a bliss. Q’s thin shirt became damp as he reached back down and took him in hand, movements calculated to find out what James responded more to. Next time he would ask, but that wasn’t what tonight was about. Tonight was about James knowing that he could trust him in all things. He mapped his reactions, hitches in breath, slight arches, the way his eyes shut like they were too heavy to keep open.

This time Q was the one to kiss him as he came with a low sound that Q took along with everything else, lips remaining pressed against lips as his breathing calmed down and stilled. 

His eyes opened slowly, threatening to close again as he watched as Q - with big enough gestures that he didn’t surprise him by touching him without him being prepared for it - towelled him down. 

“What about you?”

“This isn’t for me. Just for you.”

James blinked in honest confusion, a rare expression on a face that usually held back his true emotions. “I see,” he said, clearly not seeing. 

Instead of explaining further, Q stood. “Bed.”

“I’m in bed,” said James.

“The other one,” Q clarified. “We’re not sleeping on a damp mattress.” James’ confusion became laced with something else, something… unsure, as he sat up, but then hesitated. Q noted once more with some satisfaction that James really was the only person whose body language he felt attuned to. The only problem was figuring out why he reacted this way. James wouldn’t be the one to tell him.

He leaned down and kissed him again. “Trust me,” he said softly, the order less a demand than a reminder that he already did. James nodded and took his outstretched hand. Q felt the difference from when he had offered it at the beach. This time James used less of his own strength to stand and instead leaned into him. 

Q knew he wouldn’t appreciate any attention being brought to this fact, so he simply wrapped an arm around his waist and walked him to the adjoining room. “Do you have pyjamas?”

James shook his head. “Naked is fine.”

He resisted a frown, because the obvious gaps in his reading of James were presenting themselves once more. Was he saying this for the sake of ease? Because he was still waiting for Q to order some kind of sexual exchange? Because he was used to taking what he was given? To tease Q? Or did he genuinely prefer it? He let it go. Small steps. For now he would take James at his word and simply nodded, before he began to change. James might think naked was fine, but Q preferred his pyjamas.

James watched him undress. 

It was, as always, odd being on the other side, especially with James’ bluer than blue eyes being the ones fixed on him. He didn’t try to hide the surgery scars on his chest, but he did feel that unbidden self-awareness of his own scrawniness in comparison to James’ physique. It was likely going to stay with him all of his life, but at least it was more a prickle of discomfort these days than the old dysphoria that had made him obsess over masculine men. James wasn’t even his usual type anymore, except for the fact that it was James. 

“Come on,” he said briskly, to get past the moment. “Bed.”

James obliged, jumping onto the thin covers with a sudden bit of playful energy, but Q could see the tiredness was catching up with him. He got in on the other side, staying like him above the covers. The night was warm and even the pyjamas were overkill, except that he wouldn’t be able to sleep without them. Even this was pushing it, he usually craved the weight of a duvet, but his intense focus on James’ comfort was affecting him as well, making him lean in closer so that their shoulders touched. If he was James’ tether, then James could be the weight that he needed.

“Get some sleep,” he said to him, once and for all making it clear that he wasn’t expecting any kind of favours for earlier. The confusion remained on James’ face - less obvious now, but seeming to be a kind of permanent little indent on his forehead and an almost-spoken question lingering behind his lips. He obliged though, sinking a little deeper into the pillow and shutting his eyes. Q, on instinct, wrapped a hand over his chest. For a moment James tensed, but then he felt him melt into the touch. An interesting observation to consider for the future.

James shifted a little so that he was closer to Q, who began to wonder again - was it intentional, for his sake, a barrier they had broken down, or simply a movement. Perhaps the asking of these questions and that he wanted to spend a lifetime trying to answer them was love. It made more sense than the kind of monogamous romance and marriage with kids that he’d been told to search for. 

“One thing,” said James quietly, eyes remaining closed. “What was the exact objective?”

“This. You.”

James’ heart rate was slowing as he relaxed into sleep. It was the most intimate thing that Q had ever observed. Even on the missions he had to sleep on it was with one eye open, an obligatory rest rather than a thing to be enjoyed. Not like this, falling into it gradually without having to worry about the person lying next to him or with the assistance of alcohol. 

“If you wanted to get me to bed, you could’ve asked earlier,” he murmured, some half-joking vestige of his earlier, insecure self probably the only thing he could think of mustering up in this sleep-drunk state. 

“Yes, well, I needed to get you in the right state of mind first.”

“Was like swimming.”

“That was the idea,” said Q as James’s head half-fell against his chest. He wouldn’t be sleeping much tonight, but that was fine. He could spend the time observing James with his guard down, which was, after all, what he wanted to get out of this. Breathing rate, REM cycle, twitches, whether he talked in his sleep, any other facts that might make themselves apparent. 

He remembered an invitation extended years ago to "keep looking." 

Now, like then, Q couldn't quite explain the want or the way they fit together.

But looking... he could do that.


End file.
